Student Created Gamesin an

Information Literacy Course

Kate Todd

Emerging Technologies Symposium

July 21, 2010

San Jose, California

Background

http://www.quia.com/rr/645841.html

What is the traditional information literacy assignment

at Manhattanville College?

Creating an annotated bibliography

A sample annotated bibliography

Downloaded from

http://www1.chaffey.edu/english/handbook/abfaq.htm

Limitations of annotated bibliography assignment for undergraduates

• Chinese menu selection: 1 book, 2 journal articles, 1 newspaper, 1 web site

• Lack of meaningful context• Easy to plagiarize• Unlikely to need before graduate school• Assessment by minutia such as number of

spaces, placement of commas and italics• Boring to grade

Search for alternative assignment

• Games have been designed by many libraries to teach information literacy

• Games arranged by ACRL standards:http://mville.libguides.com/standards

• Could students design their own information literacy game?

Manhattanville College Gaming Grant

Student Created Games as a Tool for Academic Success

Why use educational video games?

1. Use action instead of explanation

2. Create personal motivation and satisfaction

3. Accommodate multiple learning styles and skills

4. Reinforce mastery skills

5. Provide interactive and decision making context

(Kebritchi & Hirumi, 2008)

Grant implementation

Summer 2009

MAP program

17 students

Introduction to Scratch

5 Information Literacy topics

1. Manhattanville Library web site

2. Assignment planning/time management

3. Asking questions of librarians

4. Finding books in the library

5. Using a database to find periodicals

5 lessons in Scratch

1. Moving sprites on the stage

2. Using multiple sprite costumes

3. Interaction of sprites

4. Using variables for scoring

5. Communication among sprites

• Students introduced to Scratch software

• Students divided into 5 groups to prepare games on LIS topics

Let’s look at student designed games

Group 1: Asking questions of librarians

• Estefany, Ivan, Jordan, Myosha• http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/mvilletodd/661410• Librarian is a bat• Good conversation as example of asking

questions• Shows understanding of link of subject to LC

class to location on Tier 2• Wanted to change background—something I

had not taught them

Group 2: Using a database to find periodicals

• Edwin, Madison, Nicole, Vanessa• http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/mvilletodd/661397• Misunderstood assignment• Used database to find this information• Not about how to use database• Drag and drop matching game about animal

babies—finished one animal pair• Understood use of variable for scoring

Group 3: Assignment planning/Time management

• Abdoul, Courtney, Jennifer• http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/mvilletodd/661399• Walker was from first Scratch lesson—built on

what was learned in class• Little old lady stereotyped librarian• Again demonstrating link of subject to LC class

to location, plus importance of asking librarian• Does not seem to picked up theme of

assignment: time management

Group 4: Finding books in the library

• Alina, Elizabeth, J.R.• http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/mvilletodd/661401• Breadth of role of book types and multiple uses

of library• Again wanted to change background—important

game element• Expanded beyond the basics of finding books

Group 5: Manhattanville Library web site

• Annesha, Avril, Max• http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/mvilletodd/661403• Identifies four key areas of the library web site• Uses quiz format• Only finished first question• Game building takes a long time• Used that little old lady stereotype again

What have we learned about gaming?

• It is more difficult to teach students how to create games that I thought

• Games do help maintain student attention

• Games are useful for student assessment

• Difficult to overcome belief that no learning takes place when students are having fun

What we have learned about Information Literacy Instruction?

• The importance of real library places in understanding virtual spaces

• Information Literacy distinctions among topics is not intuitive to incoming students

• Incoming freshmen do not find meaning in an introduction to database searching

ReferencesAlvarado, R. C. (2008). Overcoming the fear of gaming: A strategy for incorporating games into

teaching and learning. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, 31(3). Retrieved April 5, 2010,

from

http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/Ov

ercomingtheFearofGamingAStra/163094

Gee, J . P. (2007). What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (Revised

and Updated Edition ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Harris, A., & Rice, S. E. (2008). Gaming in academic libraries : collections, marketing, and

information literacy. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries.

Kebritchi, M., & Hirumi, A. (2008). Examining the pedagogical foundations of modern educational

computer games. Computers & Education, 51(4), 1729-1743.

doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.05.004

Malone, T. W. (1980). What makes things fun to learn? Heuristics for designing instructional

computer games. Symposium on Small Systems: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL

symposium and the first SIGPC symposium on Small systems, 162-169. doi:

10.1145/800088.802839

McCrea, B. (2010). Not J ust Fun and Games. Campus Technology. Retrieved May 05, 2010, from

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/03/03/not-just-fun-and-games.aspx

Prensky, M. (2007). Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: Paragon House.

Prensky, M. (2008). Students as designers and creators of educational computer games: Who

else? British J ournal of Educational Technology, 39(6), 1004-1019. doi:10.1111/j.1467-

8535.2008.00823_2.x

Robertson, M. J ., & J ones, J . G. (2009). Exploring academic library users' preferences of delivery

methods for library instruction. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 48(3), 259-269.

Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

For more information, contactKate Todd

toddk@mville.edu

Visit the grant website:

mville.libguides.com/games